[wysiwyg]

This is directed at Videotron and Shaw Direct subscribers as they are the only ones capable of receiving RFO (St Pierre and Miquelon) unless you get it FTA from Newfoundland... The island is going all digital Sept 30, 2011 and the analog feed will end. This is how it is picked up in Canada.

The biggest change is that due to rights issues with Canada, RFO as well as newly introduced national channels France 2,3,4,5, O and France 24 will all be encrypted. So unless Shaw and Videotron have some sort of agreement, it appears that RFO will be gone from your dial next year.

I used to get when Bell carried it. Now I'm with Rogers and they don't carry it either.

I get my French TV fix by using a Sling Box hooked up to Fiber in France. The quality is superb (just as good as here).

Source:
http://outremer.tousaunumerique.fr/no_cache/territoires/mon-territoire/region/saint-pierre-et-miquelon/

 

[2415]

I don't think it's the rumour on how RFO will be off air.

Please note that as of now RFO is renamed to la 1ère (short for première), and it has a new logo. RFO in SPM is now called Saint-Pierre et Miquelon 1ère.

That "1" logo is very similar to the channels that are owned by France Télévisions (France 2, France 3, France 4, France 5, France Ô and France 24).

 

[jericho]

I don't see how any of that would affect the ability of cable and satellite companies to carry the channel. It has been approved by the CRTC for carriage and i'm pretty certain Shaw Direct and Videotron have worked out some kind of deal for carriage with them and aren't just relaying their signals without and kind of approval or knowledge from RFO. My guess is RFO will not encrypt it for them.

 

[wysiwyg]

The problem is that while RFO is approved for carriage in Canada, France has always been against this and tried to block this all along. Canada never negotiated rights to many programs for Canada. Now with encryption, they can block this for good, unless Shaw and Videotron want to get a grey market card (unlikely for obvious reasons) or negotiate something.. Time will tell.

From their site:
Le numérique sera diffusé en MPEG4 crypté Viaccess en hertzien :
En raison des procès intentés par les ayants droits des programmes diffusés sur les chaines de France télévision, celle ci a souhaité que ces programmes ne puissent pas être repris légalement par les réseaux canadiens voisins. Elle a donc demandé à ROM1 de crypter les émissions avec la norme Viaccess.

Translated:
The digital feed will be transmited in MPEG4 encrypted Viaccess in OTA:
Due to to programing rights on the channels from France Television, they have requested that these not be picked up legally by the neighbouring Canadian providers. They have asked ROM1 to encrypt these shows with the standard Viaccess.